About Mary Joan

Posts by Mary Joan:

Web Site Strategy

When was the last time you asked your clients how they view and use their web site? And when was the last time they asked their clients? Have they ever asked? Are their clients telling them? And is it really that important?

Of course it’s important because it’s basic Marketing 101.

Web Site Strategy and Marketing

I took a client out to lunch this week for two reasons: for some social time and to discuss the web site strategy for his company.

I really love this part of my job. I get to enjoy the company of some great people over great food. But equally important, connect in a way that you can’t through texting and email.

As we discussed the web site and what direction it should be going we touched on mobile web sites, responsive web sites, cell phones, notebooks and customers. We talked about design, content, providers and devices. We discussed how people view and use web sites, and how they prefer to. And we discussed some web sites that have left users in the ether to jump on the latest technology bandwagon.

That last part is still the key to your web site strategy, and really is Marketing 101. Who is your target audience, what do they need, how do they want to communicate with you, and how do they want you to communicate with them?

Marketing Is Still the Same

I realized during lunch that with all the extraordinary changes in the communications world over the last decade marketing hasn’t changed a whole lot. The basic premise is still promoting and selling products or services. It’s only the way it’s delivered and communicated that has changed drastically.

As we’ve morphed into a mobile society with the expectation that everything can and should be at our fingertips, web site strategy has become the focal point of many marketing campaigns. Hence our business lunch to plot web site strategy for the coming years. And like 10 years ago, and 20 years ago, and 50 years ago, and 100 years ago we will start with the customers, what they need and what they want. We will ask them.

Do you need help with your web site strategy? Give Mary Joan a shout at (312) 421-2129. You never know, you could end up having lunch.

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Top 5 Ways to Maintain Your Online Reputation

Top 5 Ways To Maintain Your Online ReputationOnline presence is as important as ever. You need to be aware of what people are saying about you or your brand. We’re going to give you the top five ways to maintain your online reputation.

Think Twice, Post Once

Things live forever once you post them online. Even if you delete it someone can screen shot what you posted and repost it for everyone to see. The simplest solution to maintain your online reputation is to think before you post. If you’ve thought about your post and have no reservations about it then post it. If you think about it and still have some hold ups then send it to a peer to review before it goes live.

Be Prompt

In today’s technology-based world it doesn’t take that long for something to spread across the Internet. You should be aware of the top 5-10 sites where people are talking about your company (good or bad) and monitor these sites. The faster you respond to negative posts the more likely you’ll be able to fix or contain the problem. You should have at least one person assigned to maintaining your social media accounts.

Claim What’s Yours

Here is something you might overlook. Make sure nobody else has your name. This means web URL’s, Facebook accounts, Twitter handles etc. If they do they could potentially post content that hurts your brand.

Be Upfront

There’s nothing that upsets people more than a company not willing to take responsibility for their actions. If there is a situation make sure you take responsibility for it and inform the online community what you are doing to correct it.

Post A Lot

If there is something negative posted contact the person in charge of the site to remove it. If they don’t agree to remove it then post a lot of quality posts in order to help reduce the chances of it popping up. You can also encourage the customers that did have a positive experience to share online as well. In order to speed up the process once someone has agreed to remove the content, Google has some tools to help.

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Starting A YouTube Channel? Consider Doing This First

Starting A YouTube Channel? Consider Doing This FirstThe Internet provides a great way to share your voice with the world. YouTube is a great tool to do this with because you can take more complex ideas and demonstrate them in a video to help simplify the concepts. Before you jump right in and hit the ground running, you should take the time and set some goals for yourself, your brand and your channel.

Starting A YouTube Channel

When you’re starting a YouTube channel, make sure to know what you intend to use your channel for; you need to figure out who your audience is and what they come to you for. 18-34 year olds make up the heaviest traffic on YouTube so keep that in mind when creating content. Be focused and make it clear the type of content your consumers can expect and that it fits with your brand. Nobody goes to an automotive brands channel for cooking tips.

Remember that your YouTube channel is an extension of your brand that is alive and can form an open dialogue with people who already have an affinity for your brand. Make sure it works well with the rest of your marketing efforts and share your content on your other social media accounts as you release them.

Keep your channel organized because nobody likes to work harder than they have to when looking for something. Use playlists for organization, it’s also a way to target different audiences without having to create specific channels for different types of videos. Make sure the videos you post have a purpose.

Lastly and maybe most importantly, you should be sure that you have enough time to commit to updating regularly. If you update regularly you have a greater chance of gaining followers because they know that if they come visit on a certain day they will have new videos to watch and you become a part of their lives.

Now that we’ve covered the basics of starting a YouTube channel next we’ll be covering how to set up your YouTube channel.

Contact NuZoo today to help create your YouTube channel, or produce videos for it!

 

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The Checklist for On-Page SEO

Checklist for On Page Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Checklist for On Page Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Improving your organic search engine results requires on-page optimization. This Checklist for On-Page SEO will help make your web site pages search engine friendly. As online marketing consultants NuZoo Media knows that search engine optimization (SEO) will help the search engines find and spider your site and help you appear higher in the natural, or organic, search engine results.

The On-Page SEO Checklist

  • Identify the one or two keyword phrases per page. These keywords should appear in the page name, title, H1 tags, subheads and throughout your content. Use your keyword in the first few sentences, it will help emphasize the page’s topic. And repeat your keyword phrase several times but don’t “stuff” the page with it, the page could be considered spam.
  • If you have more than a couple of keyword phrases per page you should create multiple pages so each page is targeted and focused.
  • Write high quality, informative content that is at least 300 words in length. There is some debate about how much the length of an article impacts your ranking in Google. Some writers are now leaning towards longer articles. But a good rule of thumb is to write what you have to say, and whether it’s 150 words or 1,500 words as long as it’s relevant to your target audience and topic it’s all good.
  • Use well-written articles with good grammar and good spelling! According to Google’s Distinguished Engineer Matt Cutts spelling and grammar do matter.

  • Link to relevant content on other web sites. Also known as outbound links, you have control over where you take people, and you should make sure it’s to useful information and related to your own page. On this page I’ve embedded a YouTube link by Google’s Matt Cutts.
  • Link to other pages on your site. I add at least one link to other pages on NuZoo’s web site that are relevant to the current article and tie together similar topics.
  • Include photos and graphics that help illustrate the content and keyword phrases for that page.
  • Add captions for the photos and graphics that include the keyword phrases.

Follow this Checklist for On-Page SEO to make all the pages on your site both user-friendly and search-engine-friendly.

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